2015 is a year full of ups and downs. In addition to the blooming of intelligent routing, all powerful manufacturers are also heading for higher wireless speed. As one of the strength groups of wireless routing, ASUS is trying to expand its efforts. The new flagship route RT-AC5300 of 8 antennas is coming late. What are the highlights of RT-AC5300 as an ASUS masterpiece? It will be known when the machine is disassembled.

A simple unpacking before disassembling the machine, there are not many highlights on the accessories, such as power adapter, network cable, manual, warranty card and CD. The distribution network cable is only a super five class cable. Fortunately, it can basically meet the requirements of 1000MB network transmission. The interface of the network cable is strengthened by metal wrapping. What is worth praising is the wide voltage of 100-240V used by the power adapter, which has wide applicability. The output of 19V 3.42A is enough to feed the router.

ASUS RT-AC5300 changes the design of 87U and 88U to look like a supercar. Instead, it adopts a square shuttle angle design. The player's country's classic red and black color matching, eight antenna designs around, two antennas in each direction, a total of eight antennas in a circle, forming no dead angle coverage, which can only be described as domineering in shape.

The top is designed with a large area of texture hollowing to enhance the ability of air convection and promote passive heat dissipation. However, we all know the result of using a large area of heat dissipation holes in the front. Although we have taken some protective measures, like the way on TV sets, we cut the side of the groove, but it is still easy to accumulate dust over a long time, and it is not easy to wipe with a wet cloth, so you will understand six months later, It is estimated that it can only be done with a vacuum cleaner.

The front indicator shows the status of power supply, 2.4G, 5G, WAN, LAN and WPS, which is white under normal conditions, and red when the line is not connected normally.

The back is the power switch, power input interface, USB3.0, WAN port (blue), and four LAN ports.

A reset key is hidden next to the antenna, which is convenient to use when you forget your password. What I want to say here is that there are a few 4 LAN interfaces. In my home, there are 3 rooms and 2 halls, and 6 commonly used LANs. Generally speaking, only a large area of households will be involved in the problem of low wireless signal coverage, so there is a need to start with flagship products such as ASUS RT-AC5300. From this point of view, three rooms and two halls are conventional configurations, so the LAN interface of ASUS RT-AC5300 is somewhat dwarfed. Is this the route that allows me to reverse the AC3200, The rhythm of ASUS RT-AC88U? I think I'm not the only one who tangles with this.

Finally, there is a USB2.0 interface on the side, and there are LED, WPS, and Wifi physical switch keys to facilitate the function of the switch.

Before disassembly, unscrew the antenna. Asustek RT-AC5300 uses a detachable antenna. Asustek's entire series of flagship routes have always followed this tradition, with the advantage that the antenna can be replaced by itself. This is a great blessing for our DIY antenna toss party. What kind of Shuangling antenna, Yagi, flat plate, and slotted antenna can go ahead and improve the existing wireless performance again. Looking back at the antenna interface, the router part uses SMA fully gilded male ports to reduce oxidation and increase the stability of the signal, while the antenna part is only gilded on the core wire and the butt joint, and the female port is treated with metal oxidation. Although it has no impact on the signal, the environmental protection perspective is to reduce waste, while the user's position is somewhat uncomfortable, After all, it is a router with high power grid, which is not bad for gilding.

From here, the antenna can be pulled out from the bottom. Asustek RT-AC5300 uses an omnidirectional antenna made of all copper.

The bottom is designed with 4 raised floor mats. In addition to skid resistance, it can raise the space between the route and the desktop, which is conducive to air convection and increases the efficiency of passive heat dissipation. The screw is hidden under the foot pad and is very tight. It is recommended to heat it with a hair dryer before removing it. There is a warranty sticker on the screw position at the bottom right corner, and the warranty will disappear after this knife is cut. It is recommended to find a magnet to absorb the exiting screw to prevent loss.

Then you can easily open the back cover. The motherboard is connected to the top cover with two screws. Continue to remove the screws to separate the motherboard. At this time, we can see a large area of heat sink, which is not a whole piece, but a multi segment design. This is the exclusive design of conductive armor on the ASUS motherboard. Now it is used in routing. In addition to making heat dissipation more uniform, it also makes full use of the principle of aerodynamics to achieve better heat dissipation. Withdraw the 13 screws that fix the heat sink. It is found that there is a large heat conduction patch covering the important heating parts to increase the heat dissipation efficiency.

Most of the chips are designed on the front, and a metal shield is used to further reduce the interference between signals and increase the stability of the router.

It is not difficult to find that the four LAN interfaces and one WAN interface are all directly connected through the master control through the wiring of the circuit board, and the master control native is used for data exchange. All network cable interfaces, including the USB 3.0 interface on the side, are enclosed with all metal shells to reduce signal interference. There are four LAN ports in a group of two, and the network transformer HN8014VG is used. The WAN port uses the HN18101DG network transformer.

The master controller adopts the 4709, 40 nm process of Broadcom, and the dominant frequency of the dual core A9 can be increased to 1.4 GHz under the condition of good heat dissipation. Five gigabit interfaces are supported natively. Therefore, ASUS RT-AC5300 is a full gigabit network interface, and the four LAN interfaces support link aggregation.

ASM118WE PCI-E expansion chip.

BCM4709C is used for data exchange and five network cable interfaces. Three BCM4366 are used for wireless part, one for independent 5G area 1, and two for 5G area 2 and 2.4G signals respectively.

This design has been seen in many places. The advantage lies in the sharing of multiple chips, reducing the heat of a single chip, improving the control accuracy of voltage and current, and improving the stability of the router.

It can be seen from the front of the motherboard that solid state capacitors and ferritic inductors are used in many places, so it is almost impossible to bring up the super alloy power supply on the Asus motherboard.

The foxconn label on the USB2.0 interface can be seen from the handwriting of Foxconn.

Then disassemble the back. The method is similar to the front. The difference is that the front of the motherboard is basically a chip, and the back is basically a wireless power amplifier circuit.

Generally, it is common to add thermal stickers on the main control and chips. This time, ASUS RT-AC5300 has attached thermal stickers on these power amplifiers for all-round thermal protection.

This is a separate 5G signal amplification area 1. A BMC4366 chip is used to design the chip on the front of the motherboard, while the wireless signal amplification area is designed on the back of the motherboard. In addition to better reducing signal interference, it also reduces the area of PCB and improves the utilization rate of motherboard. At the same time, this part adopts independent antenna, and each antenna corresponds to a 5G signal amplification area. In addition, a filtering area is added above the signal amplification area, and the metal cover isolates each area. None of these measures is not to reduce the interference of wireless signals and improve the utilization of signals.

For 5G signal area 1, each 5G signal amplification uses a PA5542 for power amplification. After passing through the RF switch SKY15605 (with low noise amplification) and the band-pass filter CIROLMCT, the signal purity is improved to reduce noise. Here I also see another white MU component, and the parameters cannot be found. The signal of BMC4366 passes through this element first. Is it also a band-pass filter? If so, why use two? What if not? What's the use? Welcome everyone to exchange and reply and discuss together.

Two BCM4366s, one positive and one negative, are responsible for 5G signal and 2.4G signal respectively.

There is no difference between the design of 5G area and the signal amplification circuit of separate 5G area 1. In 2.4G area, sky2623l is used for power amplification, and then through SKY15201 RF switch (with low noise amplification), 5G and 2.4G are combined into an antenna.

There is also an IT76630M chip on the back.

ASUS RT-AC5300 [excellent] points:

① Strong performance: ASUS RT-AC5300U is equipped with Broadcom BMC4709 processor, including dual core Cortex-A9 core 1.4GHz main frequency, built-in 128MB flash memory, 512MB DDR3 low-voltage memory. At the same time, the three BCM4366 are responsible for two 5G and one 2.4G respectively. The triple band overlay will increase the wireless network speed to an extremely fast 5.3Gbps (1000Mbps+2166Mbps+2166Mbps).

② Extreme heat dissipation design: super many openings at the top and bottom to promote air circulation. The small chips of the main control chip that are resistant to signal power amplification are all designed with heat conductive patches to improve the heat conduction effect. Multi section heat sink cover is adopted, and the unique conductive armor design on ASUS motherboard is used. In addition to making heat dissipation more uniform, the principle of aerodynamics is fully utilized to achieve better heat dissipation.

③ Multi section power supply: In the power supply design, there is one IT76630M DC-DC chip on the positive and negative PCB, with multiple protections such as undervoltage locking, overcurrent protection, overheating protection, etc. The current head is advanced in IT76630M voltage reduction and protection, and then distributed by RF9618 MOS tube and MT3123 double BUCK converter. In this multi section power supply mode, the workload of power conversion is distributed to multiple chips, achieving low heating, more accurate voltage and current control, greatly improving the stability of long-term power supply. At the same time, solid capacitors and ferritic inductors are used in many places. This super power supply design is rarely seen in the circuit.

④ New layout: ASUS RT-AC5300 uses non-public design to redesign the circuit board. The main control and two WIFI chips are designed on the front, and all WIFI signal amplification is arranged on the back. The two BCM4366s in the 5G and 2.4G mixed areas are designed with one positive and one negative, and both are equipped with metal covers. This design greatly reduces signal interference, effectively improves the utilization of PCB, reduces the overall size of the route, and is the smallest in the same level of products.

⑤ Stable WIFI signal: 8 antennas are designed, 4 in the upper part are responsible for 5G signal, and 4 in the lower part are responsible for 2.4G/5G dual frequency. Each channel of WIFI signal power amplification is isolated by a metal cover, and each channel of 5G part has a CIROLMCT band-pass filter, which is separated from the signal amplification area by a metal cover. SKY15605 chip with low noise amplification is used as the SPDT switch of 2.4G part. None of these designs is not for improving the quality of the signal and further improving the coverage of the signal.

⑥ The four LAN ports support the link aggregation function, which can double the bandwidth and benefit NAS users greatly. The time for testing big data files is reduced by half, photos and videos are shared more quickly, and the bandwidth for multiple machines to play simultaneously is sufficient. It is not a dream to play 4K HD streaming media directly.

⑦ Replaceable antenna design is a great blessing for our DIY antenna toss party. What kind of Shuangling antenna, Yagi, flat plate, and slotted antenna can all go forward to improve the existing wireless performance again.

ASUS RT-AC5300 [Missing]:

① The top is designed with a large area of texture hollowing to enhance the ability of air convection and promote passive heat dissipation. However, we all know the result of using a large area of heat dissipation holes in the front. Although we have taken some protective measures, like the way on TV sets, we cut the side of the groove, but it is still easy to accumulate dust over a long time, and it is not easy to wipe with a wet cloth, so you will understand six months later, It is estimated that it can only be done with a vacuum cleaner.

② There are only four LAN interfaces, which is the biggest problem of RT-AC5300. Especially after the link aggregation function is taken, two devices directly occupy these four interfaces. If only NAS is taken to aggregation, it also directly occupies two LAN interfaces. Then the remaining three rooms and one study are not allocated enough. Is this the rhythm of going to the switch? It would be perfect if it could support 6-8 LAN interfaces, basically meeting the needs.

③ The wireless speed of ASUS RT-AC5300 is up to 5.3Gbps, but the corresponding network card has not been launched synchronously. At present, the only thing that can be found is the RT-AC68U socket card PCIE AC68, the 87U and 88U socket card is empty, let alone the newly launched AC5300. It's a bit awkward that high-speed support can't get on this fast lane. At present, only when there are many wireless access devices can we experience the advantages of 5.3Gbps. The corresponding card set will not be available until the middle of January next year.

Sanghua comments:

Asustek RT-AC5300 is the best in the current flagship routing in terms of workmanship, materials and performance. It is indeed a good choice for the big house. With better wireless coverage, faster wireless speed and full thousand MB interface, it will not need to consider upgrading in the next few years, especially for users who want NAS and wireless sharing, It is not a dream to share 4K video HD streaming media directly with multiple terminals through link aggregation. Especially now, there are more and more 4K TVs, and the requirements for the network cable are higher and higher. In particular, TV sets, as their own WIFI reception, are not ideal compared with mobile phones, and they need more equipment like ASUS RT-AC5300. But the biggest problem of ASUS RT-AC5300 is that there are fewer LAN interfaces. One way to aggregate, it takes up two, and there are only two that can be used, Especially today, with more and more intelligent products relying on the network, such as smart TV, it is basically necessary to prepare a gigabit switch.

The above are just some simple personal views, which only represent personal views. Welcome to exchange and discuss!

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